Five Longstanding Businesses Preserve Regional Traditions

Across several states, long-running local businesses are keeping traditions alive while adapting to new generations of customers. In Staunton, Virginia, Wright’s Dairy-Rite has served customers since 1952 with classic carhop service, while Tennessee family restaurants such as Ridgewood Barbecue and Chattanooga’s Bea’s remain destinations for smoked barbecue and family-style Southern meals. In Dartmouth, Massachusetts, Elizabeth Crane Swartz reopened a longtime needlepoint shop as Seagrass Studio, carrying its craft tradition forward as its fifth owner. Philadelphia’s Fleishman’s, the city’s oldest continuously operating fabric shop, has served tailors and makers for more than a century, and Georgia’s family-run Sock Shoppe grew from a 1936 mill-seconds outlet into a multi-generation retail business.